


Waiting for the Hint of a Spark

by CountlessUntruths (KaliCephirot)



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Ableism, Adam/Shiro only happens in the 'they were a couple before' sense and is not and will not be endgame, Canonical couples breaking up, Chronic Illness, Friendship/Love, Galaxy Garrison, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Oblivious Shiro (Voltron), Pining Keith (Voltron), Pre-Kerberos Mission, Shiro x Keith will be endgame, Unrequited Crush, Voltron Spoilers, breaking up and afterwards, character death in the 'characters believe someone else died' way, for a season that hasn't come out, vld s7 spoilers, welp
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-23
Updated: 2018-07-24
Packaged: 2019-06-15 06:07:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,081
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15406677
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KaliCephirot/pseuds/CountlessUntruths
Summary: Shit happens and you can be the best and brightest and kindest person in the whole world, and you can love doing what you do, there still can be a mistake, a blink-and-you-miss-it moment and then you're gone. Keith knows that.He's still going to ask and scream and demand the reasons why.(Four years in the life of Keith and Shiro)





	1. If heaven and hell decide that they both are satisfied

**Author's Note:**

> Subtitle one: I should wait until August 10th but I can't.  
> Subtitle two: This should probably be a longer fic but I am too impatient.
> 
> I'm not trying to bash Adam on this. Sometimes relationships just crash and burn and, from what we've heard, this was one of those times.

((First Year))

It's his fault, really. 

In the months since he has been part of the Garrison he has gotten enough demerits and detentions for things like running down the halls and almost tripping against his Physics teacher.

But all that stays second in Keith's mind, holding his tablet and running down the very familiar path to Shiro's office because there is exactly one person in the world that is going to give a shit about his grades and Keith wants to show Shiro, wants to tell him without having to say it 'look, I'm not going to disappoint you. I'm going to prove that you weren't wrong on trusting on me.'

And so he knocks but he doesn't wait for Shiro's usual 'come in', already pushing his way inside. 

"Shiro--!"

Shiro and... his boyfriend, Keith's brain tells him, it must be the ever so frequently mentioned Adam, push apart, both of them red in the face and breathless from where Shiro is leaning against his desk and his boyfriend is ever so slowly moving to have some distance between them and Keith suddenly feels as if he had swallowed lead. 

"Cadet, coming without authorization to an officer's office costs thirty demerits," Shiro's boyfriend says, still flushed and trying to fix his uniform and Keith decides he dislikes him immediately.

But before he can tell him a) where he can stuff his demerits and b) remind him that PDA also costs demerits over officers, Shiro puts a hand on his boyfriend's shoulder and smiles at him, still a little embarrassed but mostly back to normal.

"It's fine, Adam. I told Keith he could come whenever he wanted," Shiro says, and then his smile goes a little wider. "Besides, I've wanted you two to meet each other for a while now. Keith, I've told you about Adam before."

Keith grits his teeth and tries to swallow down poison. "Nice to meet you. Sir."

"And Adam, Keith is the student that very recently wiped two, no, three of the Garrison's records for Sym-punctuations and in flight calculations," Shiro says, ever so innocently, all wide eyed. "Now, what _were_ those records? I can't quite remember who set them..."

Adam elbows Shiro's side and Shiro pretends to huff in pain.

"Yes, yes, very funny, Takashi. I hope you know that when he crushes _your_ records in a year or two I'm going to make a party." Adam rolls his eyes but he looks at him and gives him a smile. "You are insanely talented, Kogane. This nutcase here isn't the only one impressed."

"Hey, when Keith breaks my records, I'll help with the party," Shiro says, and Keith hates the soft look he gives the other man and wishes that he hadn't quite come so fast. His grades weren't going to change. He could have waited until later. "So, Keith, what's up?"

"... nothing important," he says instead. If he skips lunch he can go to the gym and spend the next forty five minutes kicking the shit out of a punching bag, which sounds like the best idea he could have ever had. "I should leave."

"Actually, that's what I should be doing," Adam says. "I've got a meeting in twenty minutes. I'll text you afterwards?" Keith refuses to see the look they share and he keeps on staring at the floor, but Shiro must have done or said something because Adam then turns his attention towards him. "It was nice finally meeting you, Kogane."

He somehow manages a 'you too' that is the biggest lie Keith could have ever said, but he stays standing up by the door until the other officer closes it.

"Sorry about that, Keith. Lately we've both been so busy that we have hardly seen each other," Shiro says with an embarrassed laugh, rubbing at his neck. Keith shrugs. "So, what can I do for you?"

And it suddenly feels so stupid, to have come here just to show something as stupid as _grades_ but he has always been a terrible liar, especially when he has to do it on the spot, so he unlocks his tablet and passes it to Shiro without a word.

Shiro looks at him with a cocked eyebrow but he accepts the tablet, turning his attention to the screen. And then he actually whoops out loud, punching the air, startling Keith.

"Keith, this is _amazing_ , look at these!" Shiro beams at him. "Forget about a year or two, with the rate you're going you'll start taking over my records in less than six months!"

Keith feels something squeeze inside him, and mortifyingly enough he feels himself flushing. He shrugs one arm, tongue tied, and then squacking when Shiro messes up his hair with a laugh.

"I'm serious, Keith, these are incredible," Shiro beams. "Okay, I know how we're going to celebrate this. Do you have any training this weekend?"

Keith thinks about it for a moment before he shakes his head. "It's an off weekend. Studying and doing laundry mostly."

"Perfect. Then, we're going out," Shiro says with a grin. "Meet me at o-nine hundreds at the south hangar this Saturday. I'll take care of the rest."

**

Adam comes back to their quarters late enough that Shiro was half asleep between a mountain of essays that he still needed to grade. 

"Sorry, Takashi, the meeting went on forever," Adam apologizes, leaning over to kiss him softly.

It would be hard to get mad at him when Shiro has also been the one that has had to give that apology an incredibly big number of times. So he just kisses Adam back and then stretches, hearing his back pop. 

"Don't worry. You can make it up to me."

Adam smiles turns slow and syrupy and Shiro starts to forget about all the work that he still has pending, leaning back on his chair and spreading his legs when Adam gets close enough so that he can wrap his arms around his waist.

"Well, I happen to have checked both our schedules. You're free Saturday, I'm free Saturday..." Adam starts slowly.

And for a moment Shiro is about to say yes but then he blinks and winces.

"And... you're not free on Saturday anymore, are you, Takashi?" Adam asks dryly, but he sounds amused.

Shiro gives him an apologetic smile. "Sorry. I kind of made plans with Keith. I'm planning on taking him for a ride on the hoverbikes. He mentioned he grew up around the area and-- what."

Adam is very obviously trying not to smirk at him. "I didn't say a thing, Takashi."

"You didn't have to, you have your bullshit grin on, babe." Shiro shakes his head. "Come on. What's wrong?" 

Adam's grin turns into a wicked, , even mischievous one as he pushes his glasses up his nose with one finger, and Shiro starts to think that they so can have this conversation in about twenty to thirty minutes at least. But Adam shrugs, still very obviously amused. "I was just thinking that _that_ was _quite_ the stink eye I got today. Probably in my personal top three since I started dating you."

Shiro blinks, confused, because that wasn't what he was expecting with that smile. "Wait, what? What stink eye?"

Adam grins at him, obviously deeply amused. "From your little protegee today, Takashi. You got yourself another one."

Shiro groans at that, letting go of Adam. 

Sure, yes, every once in a while he has gotten students who get crushes on him. Most of them don't pass from sometimes looking at him all googly eyed, and the few that have actually gotten to say anything at him have only gotten a kind but stern let down. Adam has always found them very amusing.

"You mean _Keith_? No, Adam, it's not like that. I told you, he's a little socially awkward. It takes a time for him to open up to people."

Because he has seen the difference in Keith when people stop expecting him to be a delincuent. He has seen how earnest he gets, how much he genuinely loves space and flying. When Keith isn't on his guard he smiles and gestures with his hands about things that excite him and Shiro knows himself enough to realize that he is starting to have a slow but steady protective strike regarding Keith. 

"One doesn't negate the other, Takashi," Adam says, still smiling. "Seriously, if looks could kill..."

"I'll admit that he can get intense, but he was probably embarrassed at having interrupted us," Shiro says, hands on Adam's hips to bring him closer again. "He.... he's had it rough. I think he desperately wants someone to give him a chance."

Adam's look goes soft and he stops putting resistance, letting Shiro bring him to his lap. 

"Of course that would be you," Adam says, softly, before rolling his eyes. "I'm just teasing, Takashi. You know him better than I do, you're probably right that he got embarrassed. We were in quite the position."

Shiro hums, leaning closer, nuzzling against the edge of Adam's uniform and his neck. "Not _quite_ the position I had us in mind, but I'm sure we can fix that."

Adam groans at his joke and Shiro laughs against his neck, stupidly happy, leaning back to see him. "Maybe we can do something on Sunday?"

"Sunday sounds good," Adam says with a smile, before he turns to teasing again. "Go and have fun on your date on Saturday then."

It's Shiro's turn to groan in despair.


	2. And illuminate the no's on their vacancy signs

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Second year. Breaking up and the Kerberos mission fails.

(2nd year)

Keith waits at the gym for over an hour which makes him worried rather than angry. In the almost two years since he met Shiro, there's been plenty of times when Shiro has had to cancel on him for training or driving the hoverbikes on the desert out of suddenly having to do something, but there's always been a call or a message of Shiro asking for a raincheck. 

It's the first time that Shiro has simply... not shown up. And that is so unlike Shiro that Keith isn't even angry at him. He goes back to the locker room to change into his uniform, sending Shiro another text that doesn't even get viewed. 

He ignores the cafeteria, barely pausing at Shiro's office before he tries to remember the places Shiro could have gone. A quick look at the hangar shows that the hoverbikes are still there, and if he had been asked to go to ground control or out of campus Shiro would have let him know. 

The roof is the last place he can think of where Shiro could have been, and the relief he feels when he finds Shiro there, sitting on the ground and leaning against his knees is enough that he almost feels weak in the knees. Keith closes the door carefully behind him before he goes towards Shiro, hands in his pockets. Shiro looks lost in a way that Keith has never seen him before and worry bites deep in his belly.

"Hey," he calls.

"Keith? What are you doing..." Shiro looks up at him. And Keith sees the exact moment Shiro remembers. "Keith, I'm so sorry. I didn't-- I lost track of time."

He shrugs, a bit, more worried about the way Shiro is still looking off. "You okay?"

Shiro doesn't answer, which is answer all on itself. Keith frowns, worried, and sits down, facing Shiro. 

"What's wrong?"

A sigh. "Adam moved out today."

And okay, he has never been able to actually warm up to Shiro's boyfriend -- ex-boyfriend, even if he did his best to keep it civil for Shiro's sake. And he knows things have been hard from what little Shiro has told him but the last Shiro had told him was that they were working it out.

"I thought things were better," he offers softly.

Shiro shrugs. "Some parts, yes. But the big one... he still didn't want me to go to Kerberos. I'm still determined to go. There wasn't really a way to compromise that. We did try to meet in the middle but..."

A sigh and silence. Keith aches with the pain Shiro is showing.

"I don't know," Shiro says after a moment, softly, leaning against the wall. "Perhaps I _am_ being selfish. My disease... it's been tough on both of us. And it is a dangerous mission. There's always things that even if you try to you just can't prepare for. And being gone for a whole year... it's a pretty long time."

Keith doubts, but he moves closer, shifts so that he can lean against the wall again, near enough that if he wanted he could touch Shiro.

"If... if you stopped," he starts slowly, unsure of how to say what he wants but, for once, not wanting to offend someone else or cause another person to look at him like everyone else did. For once he actually wants his words to be what he wants them to be. "If you stopped flying, if you didn't go to this mission, would that like, stop the disease? Or would you get better? More stable?"

Shiro sighs again, sounding exhausted. "No. It's a degenerative disease, and there's no treatment yet to actually stop it. I mean. Good diet, exercise, the bioelectrical treatments... they help. But once it starts, there's no stopping this."

"What's usually the prognosis?"

"It varies a bit, but my personal prognosis at this point?" Shiro sighs. "My doctor says about ten, maybe twelve years, give or take."

Keith tries hard not to wince at that, but the knowledge of that claws its way into his chest and holds on in a way that Keith knows will haunt him on and off. Ten years is... not much. Half of the future goals he had imagined for himself, even something as simple as one day flying with Shiro as Shiro's copilot suddenly go back to being impossible.

But it's not about him. He'll deal with that hurt when it has to come and not a minute sooner. He looks up as well, trying to guess which constellation is Shiro looking at. It takes him longer than it probably should to speak again.

"So... you can have ten years doing the things you love and being happy, or you can have ten years frustrated that you didn't get to do the things you wanted to do when you could, right? Then you should just do what you want to." Keith says finally. "I'm... Shiro, I'm probably the worst person to try and give advice to people on what they should or shouldn't do. My personal motto is 'fuck this, fuck that, and fuck them especially' for a reason."

Shiro chuckles a bit at that and Keith counts it as a small victory. It's not Shiro's honest laughter, perhaps, but it's better than nothing. Taking advantage of how close they are he leans a little against Shiro, just as a small way to say 'I'm here', the way Shiro usually does for him. 

"You're definitely not the worst, Keith." and when he glances at him, Shiro is smiling at him, even if the smile doesn't completely reach his eyes.

Keith smiles back, refuses to consider how much Shiro smiling that way at him makes him ache in things that have no room into a friendship, before he turns fully to see Shiro, putting a hand on his shoulder.

"Shiro... I don't think you're selfish," Keith says. "You're probably the most selfless person I have ever known. It's not... you're not a bad person for wanting to do the things that make you happy. Adam should get that. It's not your fault that he doesn't."

Shiro doesn't say anything for a long while, long enough that Keith worries about actually having said something wrong. Then Shiro shakes his head.

"We should go back or you'll get a demerit for breaking curfew," Shiro says, pushing himself to stand up and, before Keith can do the same, Shiro offers him a hand up. 

Keith takes it, allowing Shiro to help him, but then Shiro doesn't quite let go. Instead he pulls him closer, still holding his hand, and Keith can feel the moment his brain self destructs because Shiro leans against him to hug him, their hands clasped between each other, Shiro's other arm around him.

And Keith doesn't remember how to be soft, not really. He remembers his dad and his laughter, how easy his father made touching and being affectionate, but it's been over ten years of the last hug he ever had and for an eternity that last twelve seconds he doesn't move. But then, when he feels Shiro starting to let go, his brain goes into autopilot and, awkwardly, Keith moves his free arm to hug Shiro back, feeling the incredibly loud beat of his heart against his ears. 

"Thanks, Keith," Shiro says against his ear. "You're a great friend, buddy."

Keith can't talk, not when he's still pretty much dying, so instead he just hugs Shiro tighter, and doesn't stop doing so until Shiro lets go. 

**

It's not 'pilot error' what gets to Keith. As much as he wants to say that there's no way Shiro would have made an error, he is well aware of everything that could have happened, how many things could have gone wrong. 

Pilot error on a civilian's tongue means that the pilot was careless. Pilot error when you actually know how to fly could mean a thousand things. Engines failing. Atmospherical troubles. The pilot being unable to compensate to a different gravity pull. Seven months before the Kerberos launch, he and Shiro had had a full afternoon discussing every single thing that could go wrong in a conversation that hadn't been morbid back than. Keith remembers he and Shiro laughing as they discussed horrifying ways in which they could end up dying, only because they loved flying and they loved space and that usually involved too much flammable material. 

So, it's not that he doesn't think that Shiro, the Garrison's best pilot, could have made a mistake. Shit happens and you can be the best and brightest and kindest person in the whole world, and you can love doing what you do, there still can be a mistake, a blink-and-you-miss-it moment and then you're gone. Keith has known that since the day his father died. 

Keith doesn't doubt Shiro is dead, and there's even a small voice inside his brain that he _hates_ that tells him that dying doing what he loved was probably a thing that Shiro would have wanted, rather than end up dying due to muscular atrophy.

(And Keith absolutely has to stop thinking about that because then it sounds as if he's glad that Shiro _died_ , that he's glad that it was probably over fast and-- and he could go crazy. Thinking about that. Following that line of thought.)

The part that makes him stop and ask is that, for all that the Garrison officers and ground control keep saying it's was a pilot's error, the way they say it doesn't make sense, because they change the tune so fast, and one day the rumors about the first reports from the Kerberos' mission arriving are making the rounds and then the next day everyone is tight-lipped and insisting on it being Shiro's fault without even giving a good reason that they _should have_ , even if they don't (and won't) have access to the ship's black box, if they know they are gone then they must have gotten something, anything.

And if Shiro died for this, then he wants the _truth_ because it's the least Shiro deserves, the least he could do for him when Keith was completely unable to actually fucking _do_ something for him, not even say thank you and now he ever will and--

And Keith doesn't really remember punching Iverson, not really. He remembers screaming at him and asking him to tell the truth and someone else telling him to calm down and someone saying that just because he had been Shiro's project it wasn't reason-- and then Iverson is on the floor covering his face and Keith's fist hurts and there's two teachers holding him off. 

It doesn't surprise him that he's kicked out. Keith's only surprised it took two years for it to happen. And, frankly enough, without Shiro there... he's not sure he has it in him to care about it the way he probably should.

He's grateful for the anger he feels, as he stalks towards his room and he starts packing his meager possessions. Anger he knows, anger he can deal with. Anger is something familiar to him, something close enough to strength and courage that will give him more than accepting this loss. He packs almost without looking, leaving books and notebooks and the stupid, ugly, itchy uniform and Shiro's last smile to him.

There's a knock on his door, which he ignores, and when the door opens he grumbles.

"I'm almost done. I'll be off your back soon enough."

"Yes, about that..." Adam starts and Keith turns around to look at him.

Adam looks miserable, eyes red behind his glasses, but him looking like that only helps feed Keith's anger, because in the list of things that Shiro didn't deserve, top of the list was this asshole breaking his heart, making him feel as if he was his disease first.

Adam sighs as he looks at him. "Do you have anywhere to go, Keith? Takashi mentioned that you were an orphan."

"I can take care of myself," he says, trying to bite his tongue because he has spent a lot of time not saying what he really thinks of wants, because it wouldn't have been what Shiro wanted. 

"Even so... try to stay close. Once things calm down I may be able to talk to Iverson and see if he can change his mind. It's what Takashi would have wanted," Adam offers and Keith _hates_ him and now he doesn't actually have to feel bad about that anymore. 

"And _now_ you choose to start actually caring what Shiro may have wanted or not?" He snorts. "Give me a break."

Adam goes pale and he flinches as if struck and Keith feels a hollow sense of satisfaction. Yes, Shiro wouldn't have approved, but Shiro is gone, thousands and thousands of miles away. The empty the Garrison was going to give him would be pointless and empty and not about Shiro, not at all. . 

The vague, empty satisfaction-like feeling vanishes leaving Keith feeling exhausted and hurting, making him wish for his anger again. Anything, except having to face his grief.

"I know how important Takashi was to you, Keith." Adam starts again before his voice broke and Keith fights against wanting to cover his ears and scream. He doesn't want platitudes. He doesn't want 'I'm so sorry's that would mean nothing, in the end, that would go with the desert dust until they were nothing. He doesn't want pity. He really, really doesn't want Shiro's fucking ex-boyfriend looking at him with a very obvious broken heart and trying to do a good thing because he doesn't know a fucking thing. He doesn't know what Shiro was to him, how much he meant, how Keith knows this is something that won't ever get better, inside him. 

He wants, more than anything, for the last forty eight hours not to have happened. He wants to go back in time seventy two hours when, as far as he knew, Shiro was, to him, still alive and well and making history and _coming back._

Adam starts again once he manages to find his voice, his voice still rough. "You were also very important to him. I don't... I'm not trying to-- I just want to do what he would have wanted to."

"Well, don't," Keith says viciously, putting the last of his things in his bag and zipping it close, hanging it from his shoulder. "Stop pretending you give a damn about me just because he did, because I'm going to be doing the exact same thing starting now."

With that he shoulders past Adam, making sure he hits him with the bag that held about a ninety percent of Keith's belongings in the whole world before he walks down the corridor and out of the Garrison for good.

Adam doesn't call for him again and Keith didn't care enough to try and look back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again, I'm not trying to bash Adam, but I am biased to take Shiro's side on the break up. 
> 
> I have no idea what disease the Voltron team might have thought about Shiro, but it sort of sounded to me like ALS, so I sort of based it on that. More or less.


End file.
